Euromedia November December - Page 10

euro news1112v3_news 10/12/2015 18:20 Page 4
Facebook VP: ‘Facebook
and TV happy bedfellows’
icola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s
vice president for EMEA, has
suggested that although time
spent online is now eclipsing time spent
on television, we are living in a golden
age of TV, with Facebook and TV “happy
bedfellows”.
Delivering a Media Mastermind Keynote at
MIPCOM, she noted that video is exploding,
quoting Cisco research predicting that it will
account for 80% of Internet
data by 2019. “What we see on
Facebook today is that there
are over 4 billion video views
every day, and 75 per cent of
them are on mobile.”
She explained how
Facebook had worked with Sky
in the UK on the premiere for the last season
of Game of Thrones. Facebook had 2.2m
people who were enthusiastic about Game of
Thrones on its social network, but expanded it
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through similar franchises: The Walking
Dead, Lord of the Rings, Borgias and
Deadwood to reach an audience of 8.3m
people.
On the night of the premiere, Facebook
helped Sky to push out sponsored video and
photos to that audience. “Nielsen told us that
the ad recall for this was three times the global
average, and it drew a massive audience to the
premiere,” she reported.
“This couldn’t have
happened even two
years ago. Facebook and
TV really are happy
bedfellows. We see
Facebook usage peaks at
exactly the same time
TV viewing peaks in
every country in the world. Eighty per cent of
people who are on social media are on
Facebook, and they’re the ones that are on
during live TV broadcasts.”
“What we see on
Facebook today is
that there are over 4
billion video views
every day.”
EBU welcomes WRC-15
UHF decision
R
epresentatives of over
150 governments
attending the ITU’s
World Radiocommunication
Conference (WRC-15) have
taken the decision that UHF
spectrum will remain
exclusively allocated to
terrestrial TV services in ITU
‘Region 1’ well into the next
decade. Delegates reached
this conclusion after
deliberations over whether
the lower UHF frequency
band (470-694 MHz) should
be retained for broadcasting
only or also allocated to
10 EUROMEDIA
mobile broadband.
There will be a review of
the spectrum use in the
entire UHF band (470-960
MHz) at the WRC in 2023.
Only then will it be decided
whether to make further
changes to the Radio
Regulations. This
added security
will enable many
countries in ITU
Region 1 to
continue with
their digital
switchover
programmes
without the risk
of an impending
Mendelsohn also revealed new tools
Facebook was introducing for broadcasters.
Hashtag voting and polling would enable
people to cast their vote on Facebook in a post
or comment, which producers can then take
to use in the show. In addition, Native Polling
would allow viewers to give their opinions,
even if they were not voting to influence a
show.
Video and photo submission had been
used for the recent Republican presidential
candidates’ debate on Fox, when viewers
could submit videos with their questions via
Facebook. A new Facebook Video Gallery
feature would help producers curate this
i